


Starting from Zero

by Kereea



Category: Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, Hypothetical Post Zero Hour, Injury, Leg Injury, M/M, On the Run, Stress
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-23
Updated: 2017-03-23
Packaged: 2018-10-09 14:35:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10414356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kereea/pseuds/Kereea
Summary: The Rebellion scattered after the fall of Chopper Base, only the briefest of communications keeping the smaller cells up to date with larger ones. The crew of the Ghost has spent weeks trying to meet up with Admiral Raddus’ fleet for supplies and rest…and better medical attention for some.





	

 Kallus was aware of impact, being briefly airborne, and then crashing into the small cot on the floor. “Oof!”

 “You okay?”

 Kallus gave Ezra a wave to let him know that yes, he was fine, even as he caught his breath. Garazeb had kicked him right in the stomach.

 “So…that why you’re still setting up floor stuff even though you two share?” Ezra asked, hanging over the edge of his bunk.

 “Small bed. I assumed someone would fall out eventually,” Kallus said. “Did it wake you?”

 “Was already up. Guess I didn’t wake you two,” Ezra said.

 Kallus nodded with a sigh. Ever since the fall of Chopper Base the three of them were constantly waking each other up with nightmares. Ezra of the Madalorians he was assisting dying around him, Garazeb of the time in the confusion when he’d had no idea where any of his friends were and f they were alive, Kallus of Thrawn forcing him to watch…and both Kallus and Garazeb of Thrawn trying to use ion disrupters, which Sabine’s team had thankfully destroyed before too much damage was done.

 “Shit, I think he’s still dreaming,” Ezra said, hopping out of bed and helping Kallus to his feet. Kallus winced as his bad leg protested at even the tiniest bit of weight being put on it, and Ezra all-but dumped him into sitting on the bed in response.

 Thrawn had of course noted him ever so slightly having issues with the leg he’d injured on the ice moon over the time they’d worked together and had ordered it targeted when Kallus tried to escape. The small amount of fighting he’d taken part in after getting rescued had only aggravated the injury and no amount of splinting or re-breaking and then adding a cast would fix it. General consensus was it was shot to hell and needed major surgery, but they had nothing useful for that of any kind to use at the moment. So he tried to stay off it, usually using his extended bo-rifle as something to lean on if he had to be up and about.

 “Zeb, Zeb, wake up!” Ezra said, shaking Garazeb. “Zeb, come—ah!”

 Kallus grabbed Ezra before he was knocked off the bed by Garazeb shooting upright with a loud yelp.

 “What? Where—oh,” Garazeb said as he got a fix on his surroundings. “Sorry. Wake you up?”

 “I was up already…but you kind of kicked Kallus out of bed,” Ezra volunteered.

 “It’s fine; I landed on the cot,” Kallus said quickly, lest Garazeb feel guilty. “What time is it?”

 “Uh…oh-three-hundred,” Ezra said, finding the clock.

 “I need to be up at five to try and come up with something edible for everyone,” Kallus said. He’d taken on Syndulla’s share of kitchen duties so she could spend more time communicating and planning with other cells. Also sleeping. The woman was barely sleeping as it was.

 “Yeah, you’re good at stretching rations but the ‘I don’t hate it’ factor needs work,” Ezra agreed. “…Still surprised we stole that much soup stock.”

 “It was right _there_ ,” Garazeb chuckled. Kallus and Ezra shared looked of success at distracting him. “And soup’s easy, even if you need to thin it.”

 “Which I’ll be doing a lot of,” Kallus said. He mentally went through what was in the storeroom last time he checked…crackers, soup stock, some frozen vegetables that AP-5 had grabbed during the heist as the droid felt its biological friends had poor nutrition…no, _really_ …a bunch of dried food Sabine and Ketsu had lifted from an Imperial supplier…he was pretty sure they were almost entirely out of protein that wasn’t in ration bars…

 Too bad. They’d quickly run out of bars that didn’t taste like cardboard…

 “Well let’s get back to bed then. Two hours is better than nothing,” Garazeb said.

 “Yep,” Ezra said, hauling himself back up to his bunk.

.o.o.o.

 “Hey,” AP-5 said as Kallus limped into the kitchen. “Morning already?”

 “You have an internal clock. Maybe I’m just in need of water,” Kallus said.

 “Sass. Hilarious,” AP-5 said.  

Kallus got to work, carefully putting his weight on the counter after he set his bo-rifle aside. They had more than just Kallus and AP-5 as additions. There were also Tristan Wren and Ketsu Onyo, who’d been so busy helping cover the Ghost that they’d ended up stuck on it once it was time to leave. The Mandalorian Resistance had withdrawn to fight their own battles, but Tristan wasn’t willing to leave Sabine until he knew her crew was safe. And until he could get a ship.

 “Everything appears to be in working order,” AP-5 added. “I did a repair sweep an hour ago.”

 “Good,” Kallus said. The water filtration and recycling going down would completely cripple them. As it was they had fuel for another week and shouldn’t do anything to stop for water before then.

 “I’m going to power down for a bit. My circuits are getting tired,” AP-5 added before heading out.

 Kallus eventually settled on thawing some of the vegetables, sticking them in the watered down stock, and giving everyone a ration bar he was reasonably certain went with the flavor the soup should be. Honestly it just had to be edible, everyone was hungry enough to eat ration bars, after all.

 Ketsu and Sabine trickled in first, having been on watch all night. Sabine weighed the soup bowl and the bar in her hands, as if their physical feel would help her decide what to eat first.

 “…What if I dip it in the soup?” Ketsu wondered, eyeing her ration bar sleepily.

 “I don’t know,” Kallus admitted as Zeb, Ezra, Tristan, and Kanan showed up.

 “Don’t know what?” Kanan asked, reaching out to find a chair and slumping in it once he did.

 “She wants to dip the ration bar in soup,” Sabine said.

 “This qualifies as soup? I think there needs to be more not-water,” Ezra yawned.

 “We don’t have more not-water,” Hera said. “Any caf beans left?”

  “Here,” Kallus said, passing her a few. They didn’t have enough to make caf for more than a couple servings so Hera, Kanan, and Kallus had taken to just chewing on a few beans now and then. It tasted like shit but the caffeine in them still worked.

 “…I don’t know what it’s doing to the soup but the bar tastes kind of better like this,” Ketsu reported on her experiment. “Not…good. But better.”

 “That’s good,” Kanan said as Hera made a slight face at the caf beans’ taste before recovering her composure.

 “Bleh, my soup tastes better than yours now,” Sabine said, stealing a spoonful of Ketsu’s.

 “Okay so we keep it in mind for improving ration bars, but also that it ruins soup,” Hera said. “All right. Anything happen during the night?”

 “Another short transmission from Sato. Basic ‘be wary of everything no we have no base yet, stand by, maybe group up if you can maintain mobility’ sort of thing,” Sabine said. “We managed to contact Rau; Mandalore’s still regrouping. He’ll tell Mom that we’re alive but neither side shared location details.”

 “Updates from Raddus?” Hera asked.

 “From his second. Said what Raddus told you still holds,” Ketsu said.

 “So he contacted you recently?” Garazeb asked.

 “Raddus is near Dantooine right now but he thinks he’ll have to move soon,” Hera said. “He said to fuel up so we can get to wherever his fleet goes next. He’ll transmit the location as soon as they get there and establish a safe zone.”

 “Oh thank goodness,” Kanan said. “We need medical for Kallus and Ketsu. And honestly just a rest for everyone on top of that.”

 “I told you. My ribs’ll be fine,” Ketsu said.

 “We had to tie you down for three days so you wouldn’t make them worse,” Sabine argued. “And you still found ways to move!”

 “They weren’t that bad and they’re fine now,” Ketsu said.

 Hero rolled her eyes and motioned at Sabine. Sabine lightly jabbed Ketsu in the side, getting a loud yelp for her efforts.

 “So very fine,” Hera said flatly. “At least Kallus is taking his injury seriously. Sabine, help her re-bind them before bed. Ezra, you’re on watch. Kanan, dear, you grill Kallus for more Imperial protocols. Kallus, be grilled. Zeb and Tristan will help Chopper with maintenance. I’ll be on the coms in the cockpit if you need me.”

.o.o.o.

 “There’s an odd glitch in some of the doors,” Kallus said. “A double-tap will cause them to open and then stop opening so they’re open a tiny crack. The door will not register itself as being not closed.”

 “Okay. Anything on the walls?” Kanan asked.

 “Usually fairly thick. They don’t want anything running inside the walls, like power lines or climate control, to get damaged in fighting,” Kallus said. “That’s for more permanent bases. Recent ones may or may not be of more shoddy stuff.”

 “Durasteel, mainly?”

 “Yes.”

 Part of the problem with being a double agent who had to leave and fully join the rebellion was how quickly information became out of date. However there were things that would take longer to change—protocols applying to the whole military, construction details shared across multiple large, expensive projects, basic Imperial mindsets, all of them were still possibly relevant in ome small way.

 And thus Kallus spent a lot of time making recordings of that information with Kanan Jarrus prompting him if he thought Kallus was onto something particularly useful.

 “The big windows have shutters. To prevent being shot out. Anything on those?” Kanan tried.

 “I’ve never seen indication they were automatic,” Kallus said after a few moments. “Seemed to be down to whoever controlled a room to modify them. Thrawn seemed to have several settings he liked for various low-light styles.”

 Today’s topic: Imperial base architecture.

 “Are there other shutters on smaller windows?” Kanan asked.

 “Depends on the size. If a teenaged human could crawl through it then yes,” Kallus said. “At last in bases I’ve been on. Bases on words with smaller overall species may in all likelihood put shutters on the smaller ones too.”

  “Good point,” Kanan said. “Glitches with window shutters you noticed?”

 “Let me think.”

.o.o.o.

 There was a lot of tense waiting to be had at the moment.

 They’d managed some small supply runs and re-established a few contacts, but the Ghost Crew was mainly concerned with staying mobile.

 It made even preparing for bed feel awkward sometimes. Why sleep, someone could attack at any time. They’d fled systems twice, after all. They were hunted.

 Kallus hissed as a jolt of pain went through his leg as he pulled on the trousers he’d been using as sleep clothes. It was best to use the same pair when sleeping with a mildly shedding lasat.

 “You okay there, Kal?” Garazeb asked.

 “Fine. It’s already dulling,” Kallus huffed.

 “What’s even wrong with it anyway? It’s not flopping around and you took the splint off…” Ezra said.

 “It’s as healed as it can get but it’s healed wrong,” Kallus said.  “The fibula is missing a chuck and the tibia, or shin, can’t take the extra stress and is moderately damaged even without it.”

 “Hera said you might need a prosthetic,” Ezra said. “Think she’s right?”

 “His foot’s fine as long as he doesn’t screw it up so just replacing the bones might work,” Garazeb said. “But if it doesn’t then yeah.”

“Either way I’m currently combat useless and will be for a while,” Kallus said, wrapping his ankle for the evening.

 “You also can’t climb,” Ezra said, puling himself up into his bunk as if to rub it in. Kallus rolled his eyes.

 “Yes. Thank you,” Kallus muttered, laying down. Ezra used the Force to hit the lights, as he often preferred to do. Kallus was quickly tugged closer to Garazeb, who was a habitual cuddler. Kallus feared he was fairly inadequate in that regard but Garazeb seemed to accept ear rubs or Kallus burying his nose in his neck. Kallus did the latter and was rewarded by feeling his partner relax against him.

 Partner. Kallus was still sometimes a bit amazed. All right they’d had a rather frantic kiss when they’d reunited during the chaos at Chopper Base but…

 He’d assumed Garazeb might take it back, blame it on the heat of the moment. Something.

 But Garazeb had seemed almost proud of the kiss when Sabine had teased him about it. Things had still been awkward for the first week or so but somewhere between everyone having nightmares and Ezra lightly ribbing Garazeb over it he’d stopped using the setup on the floor and they’d started sharing the bed.

 He relaxed a bit himself at the feel of four thick fingers cupping the back of his head. While he’d been meticulous about his facial hair, Garazeb, Ezra, and Sabine had all expressed interest in what his hair looked like when he didn’t have to keep it a regulation military length. Thus he’d been letting it grow out just a little and Garazeb seemed to approve. Kallus personally wasn’t so sure but he’d made a small deal with himself to put it off until they met up with Raddus. Just to see how it went.

.o.o.o.

 Kallus awoke with a jolt which was not the best movement to make as it cracked his and Garazeb’s heads together. Moderately more painful for him than Garazeb, but not painless for the lasat either. “Sorry.”

 “S’ fine. Prob’ly was seconds from doin’ that too,” Garazeb said, yawning even as he kept is voice low for Ezra’s sake.

 “Ion disruptors?”

 “Yeah. You?”

 “Similar,” Kallus said. He idly fantasied about choking Thrawn for that. True Thrawn was very strong but not outrageously so in comparison to Kallus. If one could knock him to the ground, pin him just so, and then apply pressure with an object, say the staff of an extended bo-rifle…hmm. Could work.

 He’d work on it.

 Garazeb incrementally adjusted their positions—it had to be incremental as there wasn’t exactly anywhere to go on a bed so small—carefully avoiding Kallus’ bad leg as he tangled them a bit more securely.

 Kallus slipped a hand up ad rubbed behind Garazeb’s ear. He was rewarded with a momentarily blissed-out look before Garazeb gently knocked their foreheads together. A far cry from Kallus slamming into him from a nightmare it was actually rather…intimate feeling.

 “Better, Kal?”

 “Yes. Thank you, Garazeb.”

 Garazeb made the odd blush-scoff he usually used when Kallus used his name. While Kallus did slip into “Zeb” occasionally, part of him liked being the only one who regularly used Garazeb’s full first name. It felt the same as Garazeb calling him ‘Kal.’

 “Right. Well, back to sleep. We’re on watch tomorrow night,” Garazeb said.

 “Mm,” Kallus agreed.

.o.o.o.

 Watch ended up being fairly boring. They both tended to their weapons, conversed with AP-5 and Chopper when the droids wandered in, and handled any messages that came. None were emergencies worth waking Hera and Kanan over, thought Kallus did snicker at hearing some news that Tarkin was displeased with Thrawn.

 “He can’t be that mad. Thrawn took out a base,” Garazeb said.

 “Tarkin will be mad about whatever he deems is enough failure,” Kallus said. “Even if he’s merely displeased Thrawn will be affected. One thing Thrawn and I have in common is perfectionism—his not only _not_ wiping out the majority of the Rebellion but not catching most of it-”

 “Us,” Garazeb corrected.

 “Us, yes,” Kallus said. Not going with it would make Garazeb all concerned and such. “Not catching most of us within about a month’s time afterwards would be driving him crazy all on its own. Add a superior’s displeasure and we may be seeing a much more stressed Thrawn.”

 “Which could be more dangerous,” Garazeb said.

 “True. But after a man decides to make you watch your friends get killed you’ll find his mental state taking a hit in any way feels rewarding,” Kallus said. “Though I do feel a little sorry for him. Tarkin’s a rather intense xenophobe so who knows how much of what Thrawn faces is based in that instead of just not totally succeeding?”

 “He works for them so I don’t much care how they treat him,” Garazeb muttered. “Still, if he gets desperate to prove he’s still good at what he does he’ll _really_ crack down.”

 “I’ve said as much to Kanan and he warned the rest of the Rebellion to be careful,” Kallus agreed. “I feel like we haven’t seen the depths Thrawn can really reach. Not yet.”

.o.o.o.

 “Move, move, move!” Hera called over her shoulder.

 Kallus put a hand to his face. Of course the fuel run had gone wrong. Of course. He’d stayed in the cockpit with Hera—he couldn’t run and needed to be able to easily strap himself in because a fall would fuck his leg. A grouchy Ketsu had stayed in the main gunner’s position also forbidden from running due to concerns for her ribs.

 “Ramp’s closed, let’s go!” Kanan called from somewhere farther back in the ship.

 Hera must have slammed the throttle with how quickly they took off. “Kallus, tell me when hyperdrive’s ready.”

 “All right,” Kallus said. It looked like it was doing all right, “Think we just need the clearance.”

 “Good,” Hera said, dodging a few small fighters. “Make the ship announcement.”

 Kallus grabbed the com, “Hera says we’re going to hyperspace as soon as we can, make sure you hold onto something!”

 He heard a few people scrambling in the back of the ship even as Tristan came into the cocpit.

 “Report,” Hera said, not looking at him.

 “Couple blaster grazes, nothing else. We got more than three quarters of the way full before they caught us,” Tristan said.

 “Good. Sit down and buckle up,” Hera said. “Let’s get out of here.”

.o.o.o.

 After so much running and hiding and more running it was a relief to see the huge Mon Calamari ship ahead.

 “Hera Syndulla, requesting clearance,” Hera said when asked her business over the coms.

 “Ah, Captain Syndulla! Let me get the Admiral!” the officer said.

 “Captain, good to see you. We were getting worried you might not show up,” Raddus said. “Thrawn is ever relentless.”

 “You can say that again, sir,” Hera said.

 “We’re opening the central docking bay,” Raddus said. “Does your crew need anything immediately?”

 “Yes. We’ve been short of supplies and have two in need of better medical attention than we’ve been able to provide,” Hera said.

 “We’ll let you in the hangar, stand by Captain Sydulla,” Raddus said. “We’ll provide you with whatever you need, get you back on your feet.”

 “Thank you, sir,” Hera said.

 “Raddus out,” Raddus said.

 Hera sank in her seat, “All right people. We made it.”

 The relief was palatable as they landed in the hangar. Rest was called for most of all. Rest and food.

 And Kallus and Ketsu to be seen by actual medics.

 Garazeb offered Kallus a hand and helped take his weight so he could walk along with the rest.

 “Finally, a break. So…think we’re going to start sleeping better?” Garazeb asked.

 “Between us and Jabba I’d say we’ve got plenty more nightmares to deal with,” Kallus admitted. “Still, if they’re right about being able to fabricate something for my leg I’d be endlessly grateful.”

 “Yeah. I mean not that I’m not the best, most handsome crutch ever or anything, but a guy needs to walk on his own. I get it,” Garazeb said.

 “Yes. Besides what if you’re needed on the other end of the ship? My bo-rifle simply cannot compare,” Kallus said.

 “I don’t know, it’s a fine weapon,” Garazeb teased.

 Trust him to take being called better than a weapon a massive compliment. “Let’s just see how bad my leg is then, shall we?”

 “It’s a date,” Garazeb said, smirking.

 “You think you’re hilarious. You’re more than often wrong.”

 “Big talk from a guy using me as a crutch. Of course I could carry you…”

 “You wouldn’t dare,” Kallus chuckled. Maybe Garazeb was right. Things were looking up.

 Finally.

**Author's Note:**

> I know a lot of us focus on Kallus' leg and let's face it, Thrawn will probably totally exploit it if it's an in-universe weakness when Zero Hour comes.
> 
> I do expect something of an "on the run" arc in early s4 given what happens to Chopper Base, but I do hope Kallus lives to see it *prays for fav spy*. Also I like Kalluzeb so have some of that.
> 
> This is sort of just a fic about the stress of puttering around under pressure until you can finally get some relief.


End file.
